One applicant received direct grant on Nov 21 2019 who lodged application March 23 2019. Another two applicants who lodged their applications in April 2019 month received CO contacts.So, its a good sign for March April applicants to receive update soon.
Visa Grant Delay 189
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When u lodge ur application?
Those april contacts were made in last financial year when 189 was still processed as usual so I cant say this countsā¦ But anyway looking on the positive side is always better
Application were lodged in April 2019 not in April 2018 those who received CO contacts. When you say CO contacts were made in last financial year.You mean before July 2019 or before 2019? Kindly clarify on thisā¦
Also one person got DG on Nov 21 2019 who lodged application on Mr 23 2019. So, yes its a big developmentā¦
Before july 2019
I agree with you. I noticed the similar trend in 2017, but the reason DHA speeded up the processing time was because they had a much larger quota than now and they didnāt have regional priority then.
I have checked and compiled DHA data for 189 visa application starting July 2018 as per the FOI documents available at their wesbite. The backlog back then was just at 11,789 then it grew to 25295 on December 2018. Theyāve been trying to clear out the backlog since and as per record Feb and March 2019 were the highest visa grant months at around 4500- 5400 respectively. The grants significantly dropped last August which is around less than 500. Correlating the actual grants to the ones posted here in immitracker, they represent 5% of actual grants on average.
Right now backlog is sitting at around 11k-12k which was roughly the same last July 2018. Do not expect to have drastic increase in processing time as the 2019-2020 189 slots are now just around 16k(less 4k for NZ applicants) compared to 44k in 2017 and 2018.
And also the 12-20 months processing time does not represent the future trend. It just means that 75% of the processed visa was around 12 mos, the other 15% 13-20 months.
Cheers
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Hey Robin!!! You did really good analysis. So according to you when can the March - April applicants expect update like Direct Grant or CO Reqmt? By which month you reckon?
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people are waiting since Nov18 and you are talking about March-April applicants 
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Its really hard to tell but if we relate the total invites given since July at 3200, they could invite roughly 7000 more until June 2020. This is around 80% of the 12000 slots for onshore/offshore 189 applicants, or 1000 invites per month on the high side. We can assume that the backlog will be maintained at around ~11000 if the CO processing and Invite breaks even.
For the past months since the backlog was dropped to around 12k, rate of visa grants per month is just 200-300. Total visa applicants that applied starting march is around 8500, that gives us around 4000 cases before March that is being handled by DHA inclusive of the ones with CO contact, and possibly cases for direct grant.
In my opinion if the trend continues, it would take 12-16 months for a visa grant. Again this is just my opinion, based from the numbers provided by DHA. We just have to patiently wait and go on with our lives. Competition for the 189 visa is at its highest so we should atleast be thankful that were almost at the finish line.
Cheers.
Buddy Nov18 applicants must have got CO contact at-least. Unline March 2019 applicants who have had any CO contact yet.We are waiting for almost 9 months nowā¦
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March applicants have waited for almost 9 months now. May be next month or Jan they might issue grantsā¦
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Hi Robin, thx for the analysis. Just wondering why they need to keep a backlog of 12000 at all times?
And according to your theory, they may have to invite at least another 4000 people to move on to March applicants. And thatls at least in 4-8 mths timeā¦
I know atleast 4-5 applicants here and Expat Forum combined who lodged in Sep 2018 - Nov 2018 and havenāt received any CO requests yet and here we are discussing about March and April applicants and their timelines. Iām a jan 2019 applicant with 2 CO contacts, last one in July. we have to just wait and watch, no amount of data or analysis will give any insight into what is the future plan of DHA.
You got CO contact in July 2019.Could you let me know what did the CO asked for? What kind of documents were not present for CO?
By your logic you shouldnāt have even been contacted by CO but you were. Probably you could have got DG in July itself if not for the additional docs requirement by the CO.
You can check my case for complete details. CO contact for form 815 for spouse medical related thing.
I know I was going to get a contact for 815 but my agent didnāt allow me to preload the Form 815, so after the first contact had to wait 2 months for 2nd contact and then the endless wait from then on.
So even though it could have been a grant in July Iām still waiting for an update till now. So you cant really control things like this apart from hoping and waiting.
well Jan 2019 applied till now no co contact in that case what will happen 300 days passed